3 Reasons You Can’t Skip Mental Prayer by St Alphonsus (Ken)

Welcome to Advent Daily! 🌟 In today’s Advent reflection, we delve into the profound wisdom of St. Alphonsus Liguori as he teaches us the necessity of mental prayer for our journey toward salvation. Discover his three compelling reasons for embracing this transformative practice.

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Transcript

hey there it's good to see you welcome back to Advent daily where we examine St Alphonsus' daily sermons for Advent today he gives us three reasons for mental prayer number one in order that we may have light on the journey towards eternity St Alphonsus writes the Eternal truths are spiritual things which are not seen with the eyes of the body but only in the Mind by consideration he that does not meditate does not see them therefore for he walks with difficulty on the way of Salvation and further he who does not meditate does not know his defects and therefore says St Bernard does not detest them one of his points is that he that does not meditate walks with difficulty on the way of Salvation and that's what I want to focus on a number of years ago prior to marriage I used to get together with my brothers I'm the oldest of seven there's five yazinski boys and we used to go on these mountain bike trips to the Canadian Rockies and on this one particular Excursion one of my brothers read about this cave that we could hike up into and we thought it might be a nice idea to try and find this cave well it required a couple things to find this cave number one it took a long bike ride on these trails in the mountains so we all had these mountain bikes we went on the trails and then in Midway on this Trail we got off our bikes hid them in the trees and then we bushwalk through the trees until we broke through the tree line and then we're on this kind of scramble of rocks and we hiked up this face of this mountain scrambling up to this rock face that was just vertical and there after climbing up that scramble at that rock face was this huge entrance to this cave so we scrambled up into the entrance of this cave when we turned around and you could look out upon the Valley from once we just came it was just spectacular and this I'd never been in a cave before in the mountains it was a huge entrance but here's the thing when you're standing at the entrance of the cave you just can't stay at the entrance of the cave there's something within you that says I wonder what's back there so one of my brothers had the foresight and he brought along some headlamps and put them on and we started wandering back into the cave and we went for a number of minutes and the thing is as the deeper you get into the cave the further away from the entrance and you lose sunlight eventually and we got to the point where the the ceiling was coming down upon us it was getting lower and the walls were getting a little bit narrower and we got to a point where we couldn't go any farther and it wasn't because of rocks but what was before us was just if I remember correctly it was just ice it look and it was cold in there it was like the water somehow had Frozen in there and it just it was a big wall of ice we couldn't get any farther and then one of my brothers I don't remember which one had this idea let's turn off the headlamps so we all turned off the headlamps and it was absolutely dark there was not a single Ray there was nothing like you could put your hand in front of your eyes and you could see nothing it was it was the darkest dark I had ever experienced and if I think back to that experience I don't know if there was a a way that we could have found our way out of that cave without the headlamps the lights showed us the way out and it would have been with great difficulty to find our way back to the entrance of the cave I don't know if it was possible and see that's the point with our Salvation without meditation we are without light and we walk with difficulty on the way of Salvation see the way of Salvation there was only one way and that is through Jesus Christ and living according to what he has revealed necessary for our Salvation in order for those truths to seep into our heart to show us the way of Salvation and actually lift that out we got to pray more specifically St alonsus is emphasizing mental prayer and if I think back being in that cave there was only one way out out there wasn't many ways out there was only one way out and there was many dangers along that path that would have only been recognized with the light and isn't that like salvation it's a narrow path Jesus calls it Broad and wide is the path to destruction and many are the those who follow it but narrow and difficult is that path that leads to Salvation And there there are few who find it who finds that path St alonsus today is emphasizing the necessity of mental prayer so that our minds are illuminated with the truths necessary to live and how to apply them and also to be able to recognize our defects that's what light does it shows us the way St alonsus writes in meditation God speaks to us and makes us know what we are to avoid and what we are to do St Bernard says that meditation regulates our affections directs our actions and corrects our defects so you're getting the sense now that mental prayer is pretty important now if you're sitting there thinking I don't know what mental prayer is that's okay I have a whole video linked at the end of this video specifically on St alonsus method of mental prayer I would even suggest that this video is useless I unless you also refer to that video because watching a video about mental prayer can give the impression that we're praying in using mental prayer and it's not the case you actually have to do it and in order to pray that way you have to know how and so at the end of this video there'll be Sis's steps for mental prayer reason number two for mental prayer without mental prayer we have no strength to resist temptation and practice virtue St Teresa used to say that when a man leaves off mental prayer the devil has no need of carrying him to hell for he throws himself into it of his own accord and the reason is that without mental prayer there is no prayer God is most willing to give us his Graces but St Gregory says that before giving them he desires to be asked and as it were compelled to give them through our prayers it was said by a servant of God that mental prayer and mortal sin cannot exist together powerful encouragement regarding mental prayer now here's something to consider regarding this do you struggle in a habitual way with a mortal sin if your answer is yes then ask yourself the other question do you have mental prayer as part of your spiritual life and if the answer is no then start praying that way and again if you don't know how to pray in using mental prayer again linked at the end of the video is St alonsus method third reason for mental prayer it is the Blessed furnace in which souls are inflamed with Divine love St alonsus writes when the soul sits solitary that is remains alone in meditation to consider how worthy God is of love and how great is the love he Bears to it it will then relish the sweetness of God and fill its mind with holy thoughts there it will detach itself from Earthly affections there it will conceive great desires to become holy and finally resolve to give itself holy to God have you noticed that the more you think about a thing the more you want it and the more you think about a thing and the more you want it the more likely that you're going to go out and try and pursue it and get it and you know who knows this really the best it's advertisers marketing companies they want your attention and they want your attention for a reason it's not just so that they can get puffed up with pride and look they're looking at us no they want your money and they have something to sell you and the way that they sell you something is by getting your attention so that you start thinking about that thing and then that in the more that you think about it the more likely you'll act upon it because as our thoughts go our life is sure to follow and so is our money this case so the more that you think about a thing the more that you want it the more likely you're going to go out and pursue it you know we just experienced all of this the the Black Friday sales I think they call it in after American Thanksgiving well God has I think wired us to desire what we contemplate because what we're supposed to contemplate is him and eternal truths and his Beauty and his goodness and the more that we contemplate and use our imagination and think about him which is Prayer by the way the more that we want him the more that we desire him the more that we will chase him and seek him and what does Jesus say about seeking those who seek will find the question is what are you seeking you can tell what you're seeking by what you are thinking so meditation we place our thoughts and our minds about upon good and holy things and then as we do so we start seeking those things how necessary mental prayer is on the way of Salvation so again if you don't know how to pray this way you don't know how to meditate you don't know about mental prayer and the steps linked here at the end of this video is St Alphonsus' method of mental prayer I highly encourage you to watch it thanks for watching